Exhibitions

Richard Jackson: Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory

Armory Center for the Arts is pleased to announce a two-part program by Richard Jackson consisting first of a public spectacle entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting followed by a subsequent exhibition entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory.

In the outdoor spectacle entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting Richard Jackson will fly and crash a radio-controlled, model military plane with a fifteen-foot wingspan, filled with paint, into a twenty-foot wall that reads “accidents in abstract painting.” The spectacle, free and open to the public, will take place on Sunday January 22, 2012 at 4pm at Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, southeast of the Rose Bowl in Area H. This monumental spectacle is part of the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival.

The subsequent solo exhibition, entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory, will be on view at the Armory Center for the Arts from February 12 – June 10, 2012 and will feature detritus and video documentation of the event, along with other work. The spectacle and subsequent exhibition are being organized by Armory Gallery Director Irene Tsatsos and Armory Gallery Manager/Curator Sinéad Finnerty-Pyne.

In the exhibition entitled Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory, Jackson will create an installation from the detritus of the crash of the model military plane. In addition, Armory will exhibit Jackson’s installation The War Room (2006-‘07), until now exhibited only once, and never in the Los Angeles area. The War Room is Jackson’s ode to the second Iraq War and the George W. Bush regime; but in this scenario ducks dressed as generals are running the show, dramatizing the absurdity of combat as well as the problems of climate change and depletion of natural resources — relevant issues in Jackson’s work. Gushing paint — used as a stand-in for oil — flows out of derricks placed atop Jackson’s polyhedral-shaped representation of the world, á la Buckminster Fuller. By exhibiting the two installations side by side, Jackson reflects upon the Pasadena Armory's history as a repository for military accoutrements, confronting its current function as a contemporary arts center.

A publication documenting the event and the exhibition, with video documentation of the spectacle, will be published in Spring 2012 with generous support from the Pasadena Art Alliance.

Additional funding for Accidents in Abstract Painting provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, with significant additional support from the Pasadena Division of Cultural Affairs and the City of Pasadena. Generous funding for the exhibition Accidents in Abstract Painting, the Armory and the exhibition catalogue comes from the Pasadena Art Alliance.